Getting Better
by Shelly
Summary: Written post 7.12 "Duck and Cover." Stuck in Tampa, Josh and Donna finally have a talk and come to an understanding of sorts. Obviously deviates from canon.


A/N1: I originally wrote this waaaay back in 2006, just after the Season 7 episode "Duck and Cover." I don't know why I didn't post it back then. There must have been something I wasn't happy with or I was thinking about expanding it. Anyway, I just came across it and, well, here it is.

A/N2: Somewhat inspired by the song "Wish You Were Here" by Incubus.

**Getting Better**

Donna dug her toes down into the soft sand. The top layer was cool, but underneath it was still warm from the heat of the sun. One thing she preferred about the Gulf Coast was the texture of the sand. The East and West Coast sand was coarse and itchy. Gulf Coast sand was soft and white and comfortable. Most wouldn't expect a college dropout from Madison, Wisconsin to have an informed opinion on these things, but she did, and tonight it was something of which she was proud.

The night was dark with no moon visible. The only light was from the hotels that lined the shore. Even then, the light was soft and distant enough to make her feel like she was the only person out there, sitting on the sand, kneading it with her toes.

She didn't know what had possessed her to leave the hotel. She guessed the stress of the day, the fact that they were granted another night in town while the mess in California was all sorted out, and the gag order from the Congressman, left her feeling like she had nothing to do. The beach seemed like just the thing to get her away so she could decompress for a little while. Besides, she figured she should take advantage of the Florida weather while she was there -- she could have been spending the night in Oregon.

The water's edge was about fifteen feet from where she was sitting, and she could hear the gentle lapping of the waves as the tide ebbed. That was another thing she liked about the Gulf Coast. The waves were so much more calm and relaxing. If pushed, she would have to concede that there was a relaxing quality to the crash of the ocean surf but, tonight, the calm lapping of water to sand was exactly what her frayed nerves needed.

There were days when she wondered what it was that she'd done to herself. Why was she there? What was she doing? She hadn't been lacking for opportunities after Russell lost the nomination. In fact, she'd had her pick. Instead, here she was, on the road again, jumping from town to town; dealing with crisis after crisis, making a pittance of a paycheck, just to be near him.

"And," she said aloud, voicing her concerns to the sand and surf, "he doesn't really even want me around."

She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, refusing to let negative thoughts ruin the peace that she'd found.

There was something about him that made her heart skip a beat. It wasn't a romantic thing. She'd gotten over that after she'd returned from Germany. It was more of a form of energy -- when he was in the room she could feel it like it was arcing over her. He was a live wire, and she couldn't help but take hold and let the electricity of his enthusiasm rush through her. She'd learned so much from him, and she wanted to learn more. She was a Josh Lyman junkie.

There was a time when she had been enamored of him in a giddy, school-girl way. Then, she had been completely, head-over-heels in lust with him. Now, she simply loved him. There was a difference, really. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to succeed. She simply wanted _him_. She'd come to realize, recently, that he obviously didn't want her so, she wanted nothing more, now, than for him to get what he desired out of life -- even it that wasn't her.

She liked to think that she'd grown as a person because of this.

Donna wished the hotels would turn out their lights so she could make out more of the stars. It was a clear night, and a slight breeze was blowing off of the water. If it were just a little bit darker, the conditions would be perfect for stargazing. Instead, she found herself content to focus on the strung carnival-lights of a gambling cruise-ship making its way out past the three-mile mark into the open waters.

She glanced to the left and caught sight of someone walking along in the sand, headed in her direction. Nerves danced through her as fleeting thoughts of murderers and rapists crossed her mind -- and she mentally thanked her Mom for drilling those thoughts into her head -- but she quickly shook them away. She couldn't go through life being afraid. Instead, she drew her legs up closer and rested her chin on her knees, returning her attention to the flickering lights of the ship, now almost out of sight.

She could hear the sand crunching under the stranger's shoes as he neared. It was definitely a man; she had gathered that much when she first caught sight of him. His steps paused and Donna assumed that he'd seen her. Still, she paid him no overt attention, keeping her ears trained for his approach instead.

He started walking again, but this time his gait was slower, almost measured. When he was about as far away from her as she was from the water, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"I thought I'd find you here."

She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "How did you find me?" she asked, turning to watch as he closed the distance between them.

"I asked Lou. She told me that you borrowed a bike from one of the locals."

Donna winced, already hearing a lecture about the motorcycle and riding around in a strange city. Josh may have changed in the way he interacted with her, but he would always be overprotective. "Chris gave me good directions, too," she commented as he moved to stand beside her. "We should give her a raise." He'd changed into a pair of jeans, but he was still wearing his dress shirt. It was untucked, though, and the sleeves were rolled up to just under his elbows and, though he looked comfortable, he seemed ill at ease.

"Can I join you?" he asked, and she couldn't help but notice the softness of his voice, as if he was aware that he was intruding on her quiet time.

"Sure, pull up some sand," she replied, surreptitiously checking to see that her cell phone was still on and receiving a signal while he lowered himself to the ground and situated himself. It was, which piqued her curiosity. Why hadn't he simply called her?

"I didn't know you knew how to ride a motorcycle," he commented after a moment of heavy silence.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," Donna retorted, biting her lip as soon as the words were out -- a little harsher than she had intended.

"I know you bite your bottom lip when you're embarrassed."

She turned to look at him and lightly licked the lip that she'd quickly released from her teeth. He was smiling at her in a way that reminded her of simpler times. She had to turn away and, again, focused on the point on the horizon where the cruise ship had disappeared. "If you needed me back for something, you could have called," she said, pointing to the cell phone hanging from her hip, in the hopes of getting him to admit to why he'd felt it necessary to stalk her at the beach.

"I called a lid and sent everyone to their rooms. Lou will call me if anything else apocalyptic should occur. I wanted to see you, in person."

"Oh," Donna replied, lacking anything wittier to say. It occurred to her, then, that he wasn't sitting on the sand, next to her, because he needed her to do something. The silence lingered as her thoughts flew. Why else would he have driven the thirty minutes from their downtown Tampa hotel, obviously asking around to find exactly where she had gone? Clearwater Beach wasn't all that small and it shouldn't have been that easy to find her. She blurted out the first logical thought that formed.

"Are you firing me?" She was thankful for the dim lighting because, as she turned to him, as the question she'd asked registered, she knew she looked stricken, and she didn't want him to see her that way.

"What?" He looked shocked first, then angry. "No!" He cocked his head to the side and regarded her. His eyes, she noticed, were unbelievably sad. "Why would you think that?"

Donna laughed nervously, hating herself for jumping the gun. "No reason." She started to turn away again, wishing fervently for a giant wave to come along and wash her out to sea, but he placed his hand on her bare arm, and for a moment, her world stopped, and all of her attention was focused on how warm his hand felt against her cool skin.

She found herself staring at his long fingers when he said, "Donna, look at me." She did, but found it hard to concentrate on anything other than the way he was touching her. A small voice in the back of her head reminded her that she wasn't supposed to be lusting after Josh anymore; she was supposed to have grown past that.

"We need to talk," he said as she met his eyes. "There haven't been many chances since you joined the campaign, and if there were, I was too much of a chicken to use them. I don't like this . . . tension we have between us and I think if we were to just take some time and work things through that we might be able to be friends again."

Donna held her breath. He was waiting for her to reply, but she couldn't think of anything to say. She kept circling back to the realization that he'd started a real conversation with her. No politics -- only them -- real. She kept that to herself, though, because she didn't think he would appreciate it in his current open and emotional state. Instead, she said, "Okay," and hoped she didn't sound as tentative as she felt.

He slowly pulled his hand back, bushing along her skin with his fingertips, and then rested his arms on his knees, much like Donna was sitting. He stared at the water for a few minutes, while Donna stared at him.

"I meant it," he finally said, "when I told you that I missed you. I know I acted like an ass, but I wanted to hurt you as much as you'd hurt me." He paused and Donna wanted to jump in and argue with him, but she knew how much this conversation was costing him, so she kept still and quiet. "I've been thinking about it a lot, lately, and I know now that you didn't leave -- I pushed you away."

Donna looked at his hands, clasped together on his knees, and said, "You didn't push me away, Josh. You just weren't willing to let me go. There's a difference."

"I was afraid that I would lose you, and I lost you, anyway. If I'd been thinking with my head instead of my . . ." He paused and swallowed, and Donna held her breath. "If I'd been thinking straight, I would have treated you better than I did. I shouldn't have put you off. I shouldn't have been so callous. I shouldn't have been an asshole."

"You shouldn't beat yourself up like this," she interrupted. "I wanted to talk to you about furthering my career, but I was too wrapped up in my own drama to realize that you were in the middle of your own. If I'd been a little more forgiving, maybe we could have had that talk, and this would be a different kind of conversation."

He had turned his attention back to the water, and Donna followed suit. It seemed like the conversation was going to move further into uncharted territories, and she felt it would be easier if she wasn't looking at him.

"I knew you wanted to move on from being my assistant. I didn't want to let you go, so I avoided the conversation altogether. I treated you terribly, like you were no more to me than that annoying intern, when you were -- are -- so much more."

"Things can't be like they used to, no matter how much we'd like them to be, Josh. We've both changed."

"You've changed. You're amazing."

Donna smiled, accepting the compliment before egging him, just a little, "I was amazing before. I hid it because I didn't want to upstage my boss."

She heard him chuckle, then sigh before admitting, "I'm still a schmuck who thinks he can run a national campaign. Most days I can't even do that right."

She hated to hear him berate himself that way and quickly jumped to defend him from his own self-flagellation. "You're doing your best, Josh, and your best is fifty times better than everyone else's best. Don't let a few setbacks convince you otherwise. If I didn't think the world of you, do you think I would have humiliated myself by trying to get you to hire me? I had a ton of offers, Josh, but I wanted to be with you."

"Really?"

"Who else could teach me all the things I have yet to learn? Will? Not likely. It was always you. And when you wouldn't hire me -- something for which I do not blame you -- I did the next best thing by going home and volunteering for your candidate. I had to help you, even if you didn't want me to."

"I never once didn't want your help; I was just too much of a jackass to ask for it."

Donna sighed and wiggled her toes in the sand. "We're both jackasses -- too stubborn to say what we really feel and more comfortable hiding behind false fronts."

"You're right."

"I know."

"No, you're right. I was comfortable with pretending that I didn't feel like I felt. You've always been the one person who understood me, the one person I could talk to when no one else would listen. And I treated you like you were nothing."

"Josh . . ."

"No. Let me finish. I want to say this. You're not nothing, Donna. You're one of the most amazing women I know. You've taken what life has given you and made it into so much more. I treated you like dirt, held you down, wouldn't let you grow, and I wouldn't blame you, at all, if you never wanted to speak to me again. I'm no better than that dumbkiss doctor ex-boyfriend of yours."

Josh stood in a flash and started walking away, angrily brushing the sand from his jeans. Donna was stunned by his words. Had he really just compared himself to her ex-boyfriend? The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.

"Josh," she shouted, jumping to her feet and running after him. "Josh, stop!" He kept walking, gesturing wildly as he berated himself, out loud, she discovered as she drew closer. "Josh," she grabbed his arm and pulled, turning him around to face her. His eyes were wild and his lips were set in a thin line -- and she was as angry with him as he was himself.

"Don't you _ever_ compare yourself to that worthless piece of crap. Do you know what he taught me? That I was never going to be as smart or as beautiful or as rich as him and that I owed him. You taught me that good people do good things. That if we believe, we can make changes that will make the future better for our children. You taught me that I was worth something, Josh, that I could make a difference.

"You showed me that for five years I was in love with the wrong man for all the wrong reasons; that I was strong and smart for leaving him when I did, and when I went back to him, and I caught him cheating on me, and I hurt myself, and he screwed up, yet again, you took me back.

"Did you know that he married that girl he was sleeping with when we were together? Did you know that he would get drunk and beat her? She turned him in then filed for divorce. He lost his medical license and his wife. He works a desk job at a plumbing supply company outside of Madison. If I had stayed with him, that would have been me, except I wouldn't have had the backbone to stand up to him. He'd still be practicing medicine and beating me when he wasn't cheating on me. He wishes he could be half the man you are so don't you dare compare yourself to him. He's nothing -- _nothing_ -- compared to you."

Donna's chest was heaving by the time she finished her tirade. Josh's expression had faded from anger to something softer, though she wasn't sure what. "You never told me he lost his medical license," he whispered.

"I didn't think it was important," she whispered in reply. She still had a grip on his arm and they were standing inches from one another.

He reached up and placed his free hand on her cheek. "Knowing that would have made me inordinately happy," he explained as he ran his thumb lightly over her cheekbone.

Donna was lost in the moment, standing so close to the man she swore she no longer lusted after, having him touch her so softly. She leaned into his hand and closed her eyes, relishing his warmth. It wasn't until she felt his lips on her forehead that she was startled into opening her eyes. Her hand slid down his arm until their fingers touched, entwining. The hand that had cupped her cheek moved down to her shoulder then to her back as he pulled her against him and held her close.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I am so, so sorry." He began to rock back and forth, holding her in his arms, the hand at her back tracing lazy circles through her thin blouse. Over and over he repeated, "I'm sorry."

"Josh." Donna lightly pushed against his chest with her free hand. "Josh, you have to stop. You have nothing to apologize for. If anything, I should be apologi . . ."

His lips were on hers -- softly, tentatively, barely touching -- but it was enough to silence her. Feelings she had long buried resurfaced, and she felt a burning ache deep inside of her. Never, in all the time that she'd known Josh Lyman, would she have thought that he could kiss so gently.

He'd stopped swaying but had tightened his grip on her hand; their fingers locked together, as he pulled her closer still and ran his hand up her back to her neck. She slid her hand from his chest to his shoulder and around to his neck, running her fingers through the soft curls at his collar. She wanted nothing more than to deepen the kiss, to see if he was as good at that as he was with the talking, but he seemed content to hold her and press his lips against hers with no pretense. At least he'd stopped apologizing.

When the kiss broke, he touched his forehead to hers. "I shouldn't have done that," he said softly, but made no move to back away or let her go.

"Josh . . ."

"I should have done it a long time ago," he finished before she could form an argument. It surprised her that he was admitting feelings for her, something she had given up for a lost cause, and she found herself nodding and smiling, unable to speak.

"We still have a lot to talk about." He lifted his head and turned to look at the water before turning back to her and placing another soft kiss on her forehead.

"I know," she agreed, squeezing his hand. "First, I need to find my shoes." He stepped back and looked down at her bare feet then started to laugh.

"I wondered why you seemed shorter," he commented as they started to walk back to where she had been sitting when he'd first joined her, and she had to laugh at his "oof" when she playfully elbowed him in the ribs.

"You didn't honestly think that I rode a motorcycle here, to the beach of all places, wearing heels. Did you?" She shivered as he ran his thumb along the back of her hand.

"I'm still not able to wrap my mind around the image of you on a motorcycle, much less you on a motorcycle with heels."

Donna glanced at him, noting the concern he was trying to mask with a light tone. "I'm a grown woman, Josh," she reminded him. "I can drink, and I can vote, and I can even operate a motor-vehicle. Women's lib is a wonderful thing."

They reached her shoes, and he let go of her hand so she could sit and pull them on. "Actually," he admitted, while she laced up one sneaker, "I think it kinda turns me on."

She stopped mid-bow and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from making a reference to riding a crotch-rocket. This thing between them was still too fresh for her to be making such blatant sexual innuendos. Instead, she chuckled and tied her other shoe. "If you're a good boy," she promised as she stood and brushed off her jeans, "I'll take you for a ride someday," then she cringed, thinking, 'so much for the innuendo.'

"I think I might like that, " he replied, sounding slightly strained, and Donna found herself wishing for better lighting on that particular stretch of beach. She would have given anything to see the look on his face right then.

He took her hand again, and they started walking toward the boardwalk and back to the insanity of a presidential campaign. "Are we okay?" she asked, meaning it to be rhetorical or, if anything, another excuse for him to kiss her.

Josh seemed thoughtful then shook his head. "No, I don't think we're okay. But we're getting better, and that's a start."

Smiling, Donna nodded in agreement. "I can accept that," she said.

The companionable silence they had kept as they walked to the parking lot remained as Donna settled onto her borrowed bike, strapped on the helmet and reached for the key. Before she could start the engine, Josh cleared his throat. "So," he began, folding his arms across his chest, going for casual but failing miserably, "how is it that you know so much about your ex?"

Donna shook her head and stifled a laugh, thinking that only Josh would have filed that tidbit away for further examination. She looked up at him with one hand on the clutch, and smiled at his curiosity. It was going to eat him alive until he knew.

"Don't you know anything about small town life?" she replied, gunning the bike to life. She lowered the clear visor, and winked as she pulled away into the night, leaving him with something to ponder as he followed her back to the hotel.

**END**


End file.
